Graphicly: Continually Evolving for Content Publishers

When we launched Graphicly, we had one goal: Help all publishers and creators get their stories seen. As we built out a series of marketplaces inside other marketplaces, we started to realize that we were no longer being supportive of that goal. Instead, we became a giant store, and while on the surface there is a lot of personal ego knowing that you are driving hundreds of thousands of people daily to your store, somewhere in there, our mission got lost.

We no longer cared about helping publishers and creators get their story seen; we only cared about selling the books that sold the best. Why? Because as a store, that is your only function in life. To sell more. Especially when your only revenue stream was built on sharing in sales with the publishers and creators.

Here we were, managing a rapidly growing business, but a business that seemed to miss its core value. Helping publishers. And, a business that had built internal tools to make it super simple to convert books, sell them across every marketplace imaginable, and learn about the behavioral and social engagement of readers.

What was the best course of action for us?

Focus on the mission and provide publishers with the preeminent tool set so that great story could be seen.

And that’s what we did.

Earlier this year we launched our Digital Distribution Platform, which enables content creators and publishers to easily upload and convert their publications digitally, and then distribute to them to every marketplace imaginable, reaching tens of millions of potential customers on tablets, smart phones and laptops.

You will notice that we haven’t used the word “comics.” That’s because the Graphicly platform, as our name implies, is optimized for all graphic-based work, from children’s books to art books to magazines to school textbooks to picture books to, yes, comic books. Every day, a larger percentage of the content that runs through the platform is not comics.

In challenging ourselves to think broader and wider, we stumbled on a very simple idea: the best place to sell books is in a bookstore. It’s an idea that’s worked for hundreds of years in the real world, so why not extend that to the digital world. Additionally, with close to a hundred million installs of Kindle, iBooks, Nook and others (and not to mention the close to a billion Facebook users) it makes complete sense to provide a platform for publishers and creators to take advantage of those native marketplaces.

Since we’ve launched, we’ve seen an overwhelming response. Growth in our business has hyper-accelerated, and we have become a major pipeline of content, and some of the publishers that have used the platform are selling sales that far outstripped anything sold through a random marketplace app.

With that comes some changes.

As of this week, we will be retiring the previously-released Graphicly Comics marketplace applications.

Our iPhone, iPad and Android applications, as well as a our Adobe AIR Desktop application will no longer be available for download.

For those of you who have downloaded and used the apps, the apps will still work, but you will no longer be able to purchase titles within them.

You can still use the apps to read your library of comics and whatever future titles you purchase on Graphicly.com, which will still have the vast library of publications from more than 400 publishers still available for purchase.

Purchased titles can be read on Grapicly.com and through the Graphicly Facebook app.

It is clear that the native reader experience will always be far superior to any random app, and we encourage you to enjoy your books in those applications.

To say we’re excited about this step forward would be an understatement. By focusing on the Graphicly Platform, the potential for publishers to reach new and wider audiences is limitless.

Our mission to is to help publishers and creators reach the widest audience possible through every marketplace imaginable and learn through actionable insights to optimize sales and build a fan base.